Blogger Awards: Taking a Virtual Bow

It took about a year for me to go from the thinking-about-blogging stage to the haphazardly-stumbling-through-the-blogging-world stage (I haven’t yet gone through the learn-how-to-hyphenate stage). Having anyone read my posts at all means a lot to me, so when I received one, then two awards, I was floored. Thank you so much Amy and Cara for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger and Liebster awards! I couldn’t be more appreciative! This post is long overdue as it took me a while to tackle the content and follow the rules. I’ll dive in without too much early rambling as I’m sure this post will become overrun-with-words-and-hyphens soon.

THE VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD

After years of watching awkward acceptance speeches I know you’re not supposed to act surprised but my appreciation is only matched by my shock. Thank you so much Amy! For anyone who is not already following Oh! That Film Blog, stop reading this and go follow her. Her movie reviews cover all genres and give great insight for both casual movie goers and more intense fans.

All of these blogs are top quality and deserve a look. I tried to avoid nominating blogs that were nominated with me by Amy (this may or may not be a rule, but I wanted to share the love). Most, but not all, are film oriented. Fleur-De-Licious is the blog that convinced me to start blogging (so you have Hannah and Kate to blame for that), and I’ve been following their baking blog for years.

Seven Interesting Facts About Myself

1. The first movie I remember seeing was Predator on VHS when I was in elementary school. This means Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first movie star I ever knew. For an embarrassingly long amount of time I thought this was the best movie that could possibly be made. Some people say that after seeing Pulp Fiction, or Goodfellas, they jumped up clapping and shouted George Costanza-style “that’s it! We can’t do any better!” That was my reaction…to Predator, (immediately after Carl Weathers’ arm exploded off his body).

2. The first movie I saw in theaters was The Sixth Sense. Unlike Predator, I was not as happy after the movie. This movie scared the living hell out of me. That scene where bullies locked Haley Joel Osment into that dumbwaiter thing at the top of a spiral staircase gave me nightmares for months. MONTHS. I don’t think I can watch that movie again. Ever.

3. I am marginally terrified of water and don’t know how to swim very well. I am ashamed of this and most of my friends do not know this fact. Last year I went scuba diving for the first (and undoubtedly the last) time and was mildly freaking out the entire time. Luckily you don’t have to know how to swim to scuba dive competently (but you probably should).

4. For a year in college, I ran the on campus movie theater. I got to choose the movies, make posters, usher people into seats, and pop the popcorn. I smelled like delicious buttery goodness every day for a year. It was the best year of my life. Except for maybe 5th grade. 5th grade was pretty awesome.

5. I’ve worked off-and-on as a hot dog cart vendor since I was 12, including three summers in high school/college where I ran my own cart on a street corner in my home city. I was like the vendor inSleepers, except no punk kids ever stole from me…and my cart didn’t kill anyone.

7. When I was in high school I subscribed to Blockbuster Rewards, back when Blockbuster was still a thing and Netflix was just starting to grow into the Blockbuster-murderer it would soon become. I’d get DVDs in the mail and listen to Roger Ebert’s commentary on the movies every day after school. I remember listening to him break down Citizen Kane while my brothers played outside like well-adjusted children. One time I went outside to play hockey with them and a neighbor kid (accidentally) hit me in the face with his stick. I stayed inside after that. (Luckily, they didn’t call me Mr. Glass).

Thanks again for the nomination Amy (sorry if I stole an image you created) Amy and strong work to all of the nominees. If you decide to publish a post of your own, please comment to this post and include the link.

THE LIEBSTER AWARD

Cara from the Silver Screen Serenade was kind enough to nominate me for this, my second blog award, and I couldn’t thank her enough. Cara’s blog is fantastic and covers both TV and movies with plenty of great posts with her thoughts on both. Check out her blog right away! You won’t be disappointed.

Here are the rules:

The bloggers who have been nominated must link back to the person who nominated them.

Nominees must answer the eleven questions given to them by the person who nominated them.

Those nominated must choose eleven of their favorite bloggers who have less than 200 followers to answer their own set of questions (sidenote: I’m going off of how many followers WordPress tells me you have, but I’m not sure how accurate this is).

When you are nominated, you cannot nominate the person who nominated you.

11. What’s the answer to a question I didn’t ask but you want to answer anyway?

Questions for me from my nominator (Cara): Favorite…

1. Vacation spot? I love to travel and don’t normally get the chance to go to the same place twice. On my most recent vacation I trekked through the Grand Canyon with some friends. It was an fantastic trip, and I recommend it anyone. Especially if you live close (which I don’t).

2. Color? Definitely purple, although I own almost nothing purple.

3. Dessert? Cheesecake, standard New York Style with no crazy additions, except maybe raspberries or something similar on top.

4. Black-and-white movie? Black and white movies are amazing. Well, maybe it’s that so many amazing movies are in black and white. That’s probably what it is. The nice thing about watching old movies is that time has served as a nice filter to decide what is good and bad. We don’t have to watch all the movies that came out in 1939, only the ones that we now know are good (of which there are many, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, etc.) That seems like a lot for one year but think about all the movies you’ve seen in 2012 or 2013. I bet it’s more than four, and I bet not all of them were that great. Maybe in fifty years people will say, “man 2013 was a great year for movies, that’s when Gravity, and 12 Years a Slave, and The Conjuring (hey, I don’t know what movies will be remembered) came out”. But they won’t remember the bad ones (actually it’ll probably be The Conjuring that they don’t remember). What was the question? Right, favorite black and white movie. I’ll cheat. Favorite B/W movie: On the Waterfront. Favorite non-Marlon Brando B/W movie: The Maltese Falcon. Favorite non-English BW movie:The Seven Samurai.

Stay tuned for a FB/BS review of The Maltese Falcon over the next month or so.

5. Superhero? Batman. When I was a kid I had a toy Batmobile that I loved and rolled around the old carpet of my house and up and down the stairs knocking pictures off the walls. One time I strolled into the living room with my 6 year old strut and found my younger brother, two years younger than me but half my size at the time, playing with my beloved Batmobile. That was the first, but not last time I freaked out on my poor younger brother. Panicking, I screeched “Don’t. Touch! MY! BATMOBILE!” and attacked him with toy ninja swords from the St. Patrick’s Day parade of three years prior. Poor kid didn’t stand a chance. Luckily he doesn’t hold a grudge because he could beat me up now if he wanted.

The toy so unjustly taken from me.

The mechanism of my revenge.

6. TV show? I didn’t watch TV much as a kid but have made up lost ground over the last few years. I don’t have cable or any subscription service (Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc) so I rely on Hulu for my for TV watching joys plus Amazon Prime for the occasional binge watching. The show running right now that I love the most is Community. Breaking Bad is my favorite recently ended show.

7. Book? I’m a terribly slow reader, which is brutal for school and probably why I took to movies so forcefully. My favorite book series I’ve read recently was the Millenium Series by Stieg Larsson and I loved The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie (the American version).

8. Beatles song? I’ll admit I had to confer with the Google to refresh my memory. “Help” is probably my favorite but there are a bunch on the same level in my book (…my book of how much I like songs).

9. Dog breed? I had two German Shorthaired pointers as a kid. One was named Pointer, (…because he would, you know, point at things), the other was named Blue because he had bright blue eyes as a puppy (which later turned brown….but the name stuck). So I vote this kind.

This dog belongs to the internet and is not mine. But my dogs looked like it.

10. Beverage? Iced coffee. At any time, in any weather.

11. Nerdy franchise (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, etc.)? I feel nerdy for not having one of these. How about Battlestar Galactica? I loved that show.

Thank you very much!
I don’t often do these immediately, rather save them up for a single post at some point in the year, so if you don’t see it up on my blog any time soon that doesn’t mean that I don’t really appreciate it!

Congratulations for the awards! And thank you very much for the nomination.

Battlestar was very good, at least until the final season when it became just good. And then there was that god-forsaken finale. In my opinion be one of the worst final episodes of any show in the history of shows. 🙂

Hello again, and thanks very much for the nomination! Your campus movie theater job sounds amazing — much better than the year of college I spent in the mailroom sorting packages and letters. I probably won’t do a response post, as you might have suspected, but here are some short answers to your questions if you are curious:

1. First movie you remember seeing?
Probably “The Rescuers Down Under,” or the original “Fantasia.” I liked those Disney movies immensely, along with “The Great Mouse Detective.”

2. Favorite Black-and-white movie?
La Jetee

3. Favorite non-English movie?
Pan’s Labyrinth

4. Favorite place to watch a movie?
The theater, of course!

5. Favorite genre of movie?
Hmm. Probably films that aren’t in a specific genre, like “Up in the Air.” How would you classify that, or “Juno”?

6. Favorite genre of TV?
HBO! haha. Or AMC. But really, I tend to find that quality TV aligns with networks/cable providers, rather than genre.

7. Favorite genre of Books?
Fiction.

8. Favorite part of the world?
South Africa

9. Favorite travel story?
Bungee-jumping off the top of the World Cup Stadium in Durban, South Africa

10. Favorite internet site (not wordpress related)?
Does Bloglovin’ count? It’s really helpful for organizing the other set of non-Wordpress blogs that I follow.

11. What’s the answer to a question I didn’t ask but you want to answer anyway?
I work at a library, but no, I’m not a librarian!

Picking your blog was an easy choice and I suspected you would not want to write a response but thank you for the answers you give here! Bungee-jumping sounds amazing, but I’m afraid I would be too timid to try it myself. It’s funny that you picked two Jason Reitman directed movies as your response to your favorite genre of movies. He does have a unique style that people seem to gravitate towards. Thanks for this response!

Oh I didn’t even realize those were both Jason Reitman films. Look at that. I also loved “Thank you for Smoking,” so I guess it just goes to show. Bungee-jumping was definitely terrifying, but so, so much fun. I started babbling incoherently about 5 minutes before they attached me to the rope, and I was so terrified that I couldn’t even scream. ha!

Yeah I really like Jason Reitman but he just did Labor Day which I don’t think I can bring myself to watch. Bungee jumping does sound amazing. I went cliff jumping once but I jumped into water so there was no bounce back (I assume that is not the right term). But I can’t really swim so that made the jump exponentially more terrifying. I went once and was satisfied but my friends jumped dozens of times.